Study Like a Boss
Comedy, Courtly Love, Drama, Fiction, Novel, Poetry, Protagonist, Short Story, Tragedy, 1984, A Raisin in The Sun, Animal Farm, Beowulf, Fahrenheit 451, Frankenstein, George Orwell, Hamlet, Into The Wild, Lord of The Flies, Macbeth, A Modest Proposal, All Quiet on The Western Front, Allegory, Antigone, Between The World and Me.
Green Girl is a fantasy story written by Cyan Abad Jugo. Although it may sound like a story for children, the story is actually not meant for kids. Green Girl is actually a story that raises the issue of gender and social criticism. However, as Cyan Abad-Jugo is a writer who prefers to write using … Read more
The Relation To and the Importance of Henry Dawes, and the Dawes Act, to Green Grass, Running Water Henry Dawes was not culturally enlightened, especially when it came to American Indians. Although as a US Senator, Dawes was very involved in Indian policy, and he penned the historically renowned Dawes Act. The act shaped the … Read more
Ransom Riggs, an American filmmaker and writer, first got his idea for a novel with pictures when he randomly ran across some sinister-looking vintage photos. Ransom recalls, “[the photos] suggest stories even though you don’t know who the people are or exactly when they were taken” (Staskiewicz 1). Based off the photos, he began a … Read more
In West African culture, Anansi is a cunning god, who takes the shape of a spider. He is known to be a trickster and very deceitful. He is considered the god of all knowledge of stories. In other words, Anansi owns all stories. In Anansi Boys, the main character, Fat Charlie, learns a great deal … Read more
Reader response criticism is a school of formal literary theory that focuses on the reader and their experience of literature. A prime thematic or style that can be found in many of Neil Gaiman’s novels is his manner of taking the unknown and mysterious and presenting it to the reader in an ironic but authentic … Read more
During his life, C.S. Lewis writes a collection of seven novels that he publishes into his well-known Chronicles of Narnia series, which sheds light on Narnia’s history. These novels introduce similar themes with the first book in the series named, The Magician’s Nephew. Most importantly, we learn how Aslan, the Lion who can be seen … Read more
The Self-Sufficient Beauty and the Entitled Beast Growing up means growing up with stereotypes and gender roles following behind like an annoying friend. They mature, starting from being expected to playing with and nursing dolls, or destroying toys and playing in the mud, and from there never seem to end. As a young child, girls … Read more
Meet Percy Jackson. He is twelve years old, and he decides to tell us the story of his past year. On the first day of summer, just after his sixth-grade year, Percy discovers that something is wrong with him. Or rather, something is right with him. He learns that he is a half-blood: half-human, half-god. … Read more
In 1955 C. S. Lewis wrote and published The Magician’s Nephew, a high fantasy adventure story set in early 20th century England, a prequel to the other stories in The Chronicles of Narnia. In the story, Digory Kirke, a young boy, travels to a strange world to save his friend, Polly Plummer, whom Digory’s uncle … Read more
Everyone has his or her own idea of literature and what separates a work of literary fiction from a work of popular fiction. Generally speaking, a work must adhere to literary traditions, convey a deeper meaning, and present conventional themes in order to be recognized as a work of literary fiction. To be recognized as … Read more
Gwenhwyfar’s Counsel 'She [Igraine, mother of Arthur] could do nothing but wait. It was a woman’s fate to sit at home, in castle or cot — it had been so since the Romans came. Before that, the Celtic Tribes had followed the counsel of their women, and far to the north, there had been an … Read more
In “The Sandman” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Nathanael composes a letter to his fiancee’s brother Lothar recalling the terror of the legendary Sandman who would steal the eyes of children who wouldn’t go to bed and feed them to his own children in the moon. From then on in the short story, any mention of eyes … Read more
When it comes to works of fiction, it is always most interesting to see where the author draws inspiration for the major characters from and what the underlying message of the story at hand. Disillusioned from faith as a child, C. S. Lewis would find himself re-embracing Christianity in his adult life, which likely played … Read more
Both C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea tackle the idea of the child-protagonists having to go on a type of journey to defeat their respective foes and partaking in a search for their self-identity in the process. However, these ideas are taken on in … Read more
Is the real beast the patriarchy? From a story where beauty becomes a beast, underlying issues of femininity, identity, and society are questioned, years before Disney upheld traditional notions of a female’s role through their portrayal of Beauty and the Beast. The Tiger’s Bride by Angela Carter is a feminist revision of the traditional fairytale, … Read more
The book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the 8th book in the Harry Potter series and follows the life of Harry Potter after Hogwarts. The book starts off with Harry Potter’s kids, Albus Potter and Rose Granger-Weasley, going to Hogwarts for the first time. On the Hogwarts Express, school train, Albus makes friends … Read more
